


Through All of These Years

by Arbryna



Category: Lost Girl
Genre: Angst, Dark, F/F, One Shot
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-06-07
Updated: 2013-06-07
Packaged: 2017-12-14 04:54:59
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,020
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/832984
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Arbryna/pseuds/Arbryna
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>She'll never forget.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Through All of These Years

**Author's Note:**

> This was mostly inspired by listening to Evanescence's "[My Immortal](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A1mPY9z4kvQ)", which is also where I got the title.

A hundred years. 

She doesn’t keep track of her birthday anymore. Without Kenzi around to make a big deal out of it, there doesn’t seem to be much point. The years have blurred together, lost their meaning without humans in her life to mark them. 

There’s one thing that keeps her aware of the passing time. One day every year that always finds her in the same place, wherever else she may have started out. Year after year she’s drawn back like a moth to a flame, knowing that each time the burn will sear just as deeply as the first.

It’s a simple stone, nothing fancy. The grass has grown wild around it, nearly obscuring it from view, but she knows the way by heart. She’s the only one who ever comes here, anymore. The only one who remembers.

The years have worn away at the stone face, blurring the symbols etched into it. Moss has grown over the dates, but she can still trace the letters of the name as though it was just carved: Lauren Lewis.

It wasn’t her real name, but that didn’t matter, in the end. It’s who she was, who she became. Who she will always be to Bo.

A hundred years. An entire century has passed since she walked into that sterile hospital room and her heart broke all over again. 

She barely recognized her at first. The frail, wrinkled figure in the bed looked so small, so weak. Then Lauren awoke, and though her hair had long ago turned white, her eyes were still that same warm shade of brown Bo had fallen in love with. 

Everyone had told them it could never work, but Bo always refused to believe them. They came together time and again, her and Lauren, despite what anyone else said. Finally, the warnings stopped coming; her friends and family eventually understood that if it was a mistake, it was one she had to make for herself. 

It was perfect, then—or as perfect as it could have been. Bo was still a succubus, and Lauren was still human; feeding was an ever-present fact of life. They found ways to make it work, though, and for a long time, they were happy. 

Then the years started to take their toll. As time passed, Lauren showed her age more and more, while Bo remained a fit, supple woman of thirty. Lauren always insisted it didn’t bother her, and Bo reminded her constantly that age only made her more beautiful, but the differences between them grew more and more apparent as the years passed. Lauren tried to keep up with Bo’s appetites, but at a certain point her body simply couldn’t cooperate with her desires. Gradually Bo had to stop feeding on Lauren altogether; there just wasn’t enough chi to go around.

That was when Lauren ended it for the last time—said it wasn’t fair to Bo, to be tied down to someone who couldn’t give her everything she needed, to have to watch her lover die. She packed up her things, and it was nearly twenty years before Bo saw her again.

Before that last time.

It was sheer luck that she even knew Lauren was in the hospital. The right place, the right time, an offhand comment from Vex; he’d always lived up to his name, keeping track of any bit of information that might be used as a weapon—this was one of the few times Bo had been grateful for it. 

If Bo had arrived a week earlier, perhaps even a day, Lauren might have argued—told her to leave, to let her die in peace. Instead, she’d only smiled a weak, tired, tremulous smile and stretched out a gnarled hand to beckon Bo closer. The beeping of machines, the distant chatter of nurses in the corridor, the labored sound of Lauren’s breathing, everything faded; all Bo could hear was the pounding of her own heart in her ears, the hoarse resignation in Lauren’s voice as she breathed Bo’s name. 

There was no need for words. Bo took Lauren’s wrinkled hand in hers and sat beside the bed as hours ticked by, full of grief for years lost and relief that at least she was given this chance to say goodbye.

For this was goodbye; both of them knew it. The knowledge hung over the bed like a guillotine’s blade, waiting to sever them once and for all. It almost seemed as though Bo’s arrival set the end in motion—that Lauren had been waiting, unbeknownst even to herself, to see Bo one last time before she could succumb. 

Far too soon, Lauren’s mouth twitched with a frail attempt at a smile as her eyes drifted shut, never to open again. Tears slid silently down Bo’s face as she stood, pressed her warm palm to a drooping cheek, brushed parted lips with her own for the last time. 

When she walked out of that hospital room, Bo left a piece of herself behind. 

There have been others, of course—men, women, humans, fae. She’s fallen in love now more times than she can count. Even after nearly two hundred years, she hasn’t quite figured out how to rein in her own heart. The memory of Lauren is always there, though, lurking beneath her skin, pricking at her chest. 

Bo doesn’t think it will ever go away.

She almost didn’t make it this year. She was halfway around the world when she caught a glimpse of a calendar, saw the date approaching with startling speed. It feels like just yesterday that she was last here. One day, she knows, she’ll forget to come. She’ll lose track of the days, be too far away to make it in time, and slowly this tradition of hers—the only one she has left—will die.

She’ll never forget, though—not in hundreds of years, or thousands. Lauren may have been only human, but her memory is as immortal as Bo herself. If Bo lives to see the very end of the world, Lauren will be with her even then.


End file.
